Mika Vainio, currently based in Berlin, was one half of the minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic from Finland, (with Ilpo Väisänen). Before starting Pan Sonic in the beginning of the 90's, Mika Vainio has played electronics and drums as part of the early Finnish industrial and noise scene. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their analogue warmth and electronic harshness. Be it abstract drone works or minimal avant techno, Vainio is always creating unique, physical sounds. He has released on other labels such as Editions Mego, Wavetrap and Sähkö and he has produced work with, amongst others, Alan Vega of Suicide, Keiji Haino, and Bruce Gilbert. Since 2009 Mika Vainio has contributed to the music for Cindy van Acker's dance pieces...

This is his 5th album for Touch, after Onko [Touch # TO:34, 1998], Kajo TO:43, 2000], Sokeiden Maassa Yksisilmäinen on Kuningas (In the Land of the Blind One-Eyed Is King) [TO:54, 2004] and Black Telephone of Matter [Touch # TO:72, 2009].

"Fe3O4 - Magnetite" was recorded in Berlin between 2011 and 2012. In contrast to the dark vistas of his most recent releases, "Fe3O4 - Magnetite" oscillates between the two poles of silence and noise. Using his signature sources which range from radio signals to sine wave generators, Mika Vainio creates a unique emotional journey that moves from the serene to the unsettling, always challenging the listener's comfort zone.

Touch.30 live in New York City | 13th-16th September 2012

In September 2012 Touch in collaboration with ISSUE Project Room will present a series of events in Manhattan and Brooklyn (or across New York) celebrating the publisher’s 30th anniversary. Since its first release in 1982, Touch has created sonic and visual productions that combine innovation with a level of care and attention that has made it the most enduring of any independent music company of its time. The label has presented a wide range of artists from New Order to Thomas Köner, and now has a strong focus on artists such as Fennesz, Chris Watson, Philip Jeck, Jana Winderen, Hildur Gudnadottir, Oren Ambarchi and Biosphere.

Saturday, September 15th, 9pm - Midnight
on Daniel Blumin's show on WFMU

Premier UK experimental label Touch turns 30 this year. To celebrate, Touch has been organizing events in Europe, and from September 13th to the 16th the celebration lands in New York City with a series of events at Issue Project Room, Anthology Film Archives, and Experimental Intermedia. Afraid of leaving home? Not to worry - the festivities also hit WFMU as label co-owner Mike Harding and composer Philip Jeck drop in for a visit!

Tune in as Harding discusses the label's history and spins tracks from the imprint's long out-of-print cassettes, recordings from the label's roster of hit makers (e.g. Fennesz, Mika Vainio, Oren Ambarchi), and music that served to inspire the founding of the label!

Then, Philip Jeck, a Touch mainstay and artist primarily known for his mesmerizing work with prepared vinyl, performs live! Layers of creaky loops, hints of long-forgotten melodies, and echo-chamber strings meld with crackle, bass hum, and recombinant wormholes of sound. A Saturday night to remember. Do not miss!

Decibel Festival proudly celebrates the 30th anniversary of the legendary British audiovisual organization and publishing company Touch - the longest surviving independent contemporary music publisher in the UK.

Seattle's edition will feature live A/V performances by

Biosphere
Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian producer who has released a considerable catalogue of ambient electronic music, mostly notably 1997's Substrata, an album considered by many as one of ambient music's key recordings. Jenssen has also scored a number of films, including Eternal Stars (1993) and Insomnia (1997). The iconic ambient-techno maestro will present at Decibel Festival selections from his critically-acclaimed album N-Plants - a work that explores the beauty and vulnerability of Japanese nuclear power facilities.

The Sight Below
Seattle-based interdisciplinary artist, curator and composer Rafael Anton Irisarri will perform under his The Sight Below guise, presenting a special live A/V performance/installation commissioned by Touch. Irisarri’s recorded output - described by Pitchfork as “existing in an undifferentiated welter of pop, techno, and classical” - captures an essential vision of floating tones, deep pulsing bass and textured Gaussian curves. His work is widely published in over a dozen labels around the globe, including respected labels like Touch, Morr Music, Ghostly International, Room40 and Miasmah.

Eleh
Eleh was formed in 1999 as an exploration of analog synthesis. Influenced by early electronic minimalist pioneers such as La Monte Young, Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros & Charlemagne Palestine, Eleh creates highly minimal and deeply spiritual pure analog electroacoustic music. Eleh’s work emphasizes the physical presence of sound as it has been inspired by the physical world, focusing on tonal juxtapositions, bass tones and various acoustic phenomenon. He has released numerous records on Touch, Important Records and Taiga Records.

"Liquid Music was made in 2001, in conjunction with the music Christian Fennesz was developing during that fertile period when the future was still a good idea. The first version was premiered during the Touch tour of 2001, the time of Fennesz's Endless Summer and the steady movement towards Venice. The footage for Liquid Music originates from Prague, Paxos, Crete, Cephalonia, Messinia, London and one short clip from Monterey Bay. It was filmed on H-8 and mini-DV between 1995 and 2001. The main idea was to film everything through the lens, with no post production other than the compilation of many years work into a coherent whole. Fennesz's music, and its ascendent quality, made that a pleasure. The optical quality is on the cusp between analogue and digital resolution. In many respects it‚ "an exchange of values as much as working methods." - Jon Wozencroft (London, 2012)

Wozencroft will be presenting an introduction to the work and a brief Q&A will ensue after the screening.

Touch.30 live at Denovali Swingfest | 5th October 2012

Touch.30 continues live in Essen, Germany at the Denovali Swingfest, on October 5th, with Philip Jeck, Achim Mohné - www.achimmohne.de and Mike Harding (Touch).

VINYL+
The resurgence of vinyl in recent years is a phenomenon which has not gone unnoticed; as CD declines sharply, its audio limitations exposed not only by advances in other technologies, but also by the myths propagated at the inception of digital exposed, so artists explore and demand other formats to express their work. Although a business model is still some way off the traditional artist » label » distribution » shop paradigm, it is clear this is being radically overhauled and replaced by online sales platforms set up by the artists themselves. But vinyl seems to have escaped this process, and continues to grow. Why is that?

The artwork includes an essay by Thierry Charollais, "Thomas Köner's Novaya Zemlya: towards a metaphysical geography"... "Of course we find the unique Koneresque glowing drones that we know from his previous works. But we will also be touched by an unrevealed, barely perceptible sense of melody and harmony that Köner gradually developed since Kaamos (1998) and Nuuk (2004)."

Novaya Zemlya (Russian: Но́вая Земля́; IPA: [ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲæ], lit. New Land), also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as Gåselandet (lit. the Goose Land), is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe, lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island.

About Thomas Köner:

Thomas Köner (b. 1965) is a pioneering multimedia artist whose main interest lies in combining visual and auditory experiences. Over his long, much celebrated career, he has worked between installation works, sound art, minimal soundscapes, and as one half of Porter Ricks. He attended music college in Dortmund and studied electronic music at the CEM-Studio in Arnhem. Until 1994 he worked in the film industry as editor and sound engineer. Thomas has extended his concept of time and sound colour to images, resulting in video installations, photography and net art.

His point of departure was composition of sound in which aspects of a performance and visual language were gradually integrated. At first in the collaboration with film artist Jürgen Reble and the live performance Alchemie (1992). Following this, he started to compose film soundtracks and music to accompany historic silent films for the Louvre Museum and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, who called him a major innovator in the contemporary music scene, as well as noted his collaborative practice which has led to his working with musicians, filmmakers and visual artists on installations and sound performances, and to his creation of six video works produced in two cycles, starting in 2003.

His extensive discography, including his four classic albums ("Drone/Isolationist Ambient") released on Barooni between 1990 and 1995, Nunatak Gongamur, Teimo, Permafrost and Aubrite, can be found here: www.koener.de/cd.htm